Surgical instruments are well known in the art. Certain surgical instruments are used for applying parallel rows of staples through compressed living tissue. These surgical instruments are commonly employed for closing tissue or organs prior to transaction or resection, for occluding organs in thoracic and abdominal procedures, and for fastening tissue in anastomoses.
Typically, such surgical instruments include an anvil assembly, a cartridge assembly for supporting an array of surgical staples, an approximation mechanism for approximating the anvil and cartridge assemblies, and a firing mechanism for ejecting the surgical staples from the cartridge assembly. In some surgical instruments, the anvil and cartridge assemblies can jointly articulate or rotate with respect to the rest of the surgical instrument.
In use, a surgeon initially clamps tissue by approximating the anvil and cartridge members to each other. Next, the surgeon fires the instrument to place staples in the tissue clamped between the anvil and cartridge members. Optionally, the surgeon may use the same instrument or a separate instrument to cut the stapled tissue adjacent or between the row(s) of staples. Alternatively, the surgical instrument can sequentially eject the staples, while the anvil approximates the cartridge.